In conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Pearl Street Library, Enfield Historical Society President Karl O'Konis decided he would find out what Enfield was like in 1914.

O'Konis, 72, was raised and still lives in Enfield. A member of the Enfield Historical Society for five years, O'Konis started his research into 1914 in February. It culminated in a presentation at the Enfield Senior Center on Sept. 25.

The Pearl Street Library was built with $20,000 donated by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It is one of about 2,500 libraries around the world built thanks to a donation from Carnegie, and one of 11 built in Connecticut. Of those, it's one of six in the state still being used as a library.

Enfield at the time consisted of Thompsonville and Hazardville. O'Konis, who used the computer as well as microfilm editions of the Thompsonville Press and other newspapers for his research, said he was interested to learn what society was like in Enfield when the library opened.

"I would try to figure out what it was like at the time and what was going on," O'Konis said.

At that time, women still couldn't vote. The Panama Canal opened in 1914 and automobiles were first used to deliver mail. The average annual salary was just $577, and Henry Ford sold 248,000 cars that year.

Locally, O'Konis' information gives a glimpse into what life was like in 1914 in Enfield.

For instance, local residents in 1914 were most frequently arrested for drunkenness. With a number of ads in the local newspapers for alcohol, including one that touted beer as "food," the 130 arrests for drunkenness didn't suprise O'Konis, he said.

Other crimes reported by the police chief at the time included trotting a horse on a bridge, over-driving a horse, selling adulterated milk, fishing with a net and refusing to send a child to school.

Those convicted of crimes would end up in prison or on the town farm, a town-owned piece of land that referred to its guests as inmates. Inmates would work on the farm as their sentence.

The Enfield Police Department at the time had a police chief, four patrolmen and 20 volunteer constables. O'Konis guessed that about 1,000 calls for service would have been made annually for a town with Enfield's population of 10,000.

Today, around 45,000 people live in Enfield and the police department, which has 99 police officers, deals with 50,000 calls for service a year.

The Enfield school system in 1914 educated 1,402 students, according to O'Konis' research. But the graduating class that year held only 25 students.

"You turned 16 and you had to go to work," O'Konis said, explaining the small number. "A lot of kids didn't stay in school."

O'Konis said his most interesting discovery was the Majestic Theatre, which showed silent films and hosted vaudeville acts for a 10-cent admission.

The year 1914 was also the peak of Enfield's tobacco farming. The town had 1,500 acres of land on more than 200 farms dedicated to tobacco.

As far as the Pearl Street Library was concerned, O'Konis said it was most likely used by people living in the area.